Taxonomic
Changes

The intention of these pages is
to provide an overview of as many as possible changes to bird taxonomy published
since 1993. This date was chosen such that the changes collected here
naturally augment the Sibley & Monroe list
available through my pages. I cannot possibly claim completeness for
this set of changes included here, and only with the help of others may
hope to expect to stay fairly up-to-date. Unfortunately, I have no
instant access to a good ornithological library.

The present collection contains the bibliographic details as
well as some anecdotes concerning nearly 70 new species, many more splits
and, in the future, generic name changes, a few species name changes as
well as proposals for merges. But not all of it is complete, and
I am happy to receive missing information.

Included are several sets of pages:

new species; recently described bird species

splits; recent proposals to grant full species status to forms previously
considered subspecies

genus name changes; recent proposals to change the scientific genus name
for species

species name changes; recent proposals to change the second part in a
species' binomial

taxonomic sequence changes; but these so often coincide with proposed
changes of another character that I chose to not explicitly list them. They are,
however, accounted for in all the presentations.

The Index entries on the right with hyperlinks are now available, those
without are forthcoming.

It seems logical to provide an updated world list of bird names as
derived from the original Sibley & Monroe list indicated above by committing the
changes that can be found here. That list can be found via the link on the right..
It is called, tongue-in-cheek, The Up-to-date World List of Birds.

Finally, one more point needs to be made. Throughout the world,
national taxonomy committees are working hard to define consistent bird species lists for
their country or the wider area to which their country belongs. Obviously, their
publications are an important source for the information presented here, as they indicate
the experts' interpretation of the literature. Unfortunately, the aggregate of these
(supra-)nationally consistent lists will not be a consistent list itself, and I do feel
that a world list should be consistent. It is for this reason that I had to be judge
in certain cases. More background is presented in the pages on splits.

Illustrations in image and
audio are presented here and there. I am indebted to the originators for
allowing me to use their material. Sound samples are provided as mpeg layer-3 files
in a .wav coat. These give the best quality against the lowest data volume at
present. Original sound materials were of higher quality than here presented!
Many browsers will automatically play these files correctly. If your browser does
not, you can still save the file and use a player like Windows Media Player.
Otherwise, follow these instructions: